[253] Hence the legend that the Axomites were Syrians settled by Alexander in Africa, and still spoke Syrian (Philostorgius, Hist. Eccl. iii. 6).
[254] This is the praefectus praesidiorum et montis Beronices (C. I. L. ix. 3083), praefectus montis Berenicidis (Orelli, 3881), praefectus Bernicidis (C. I. L. x. 1129), an officer of equestrian rank, analogous to those adduced above ([p. 249]), as stationed in Alexandria.
[255] The letter, which the emperor Constantius in the year 356 directs to Aeizanas, the king of the Axomites at that time, is that of one ruler to another on an equal footing; he requests his friendly and neighbourly assistance against the spread of the Athanasian heresy, and for the deposition and delivering up of an Axomitic clergyman suspected of it. The fellowship of culture comes here into the more definite prominence, as the Christian invokes against the Christian the arm of the heathen.
[256] Inland lay the primeval Teimâ, the son of Ishmael of Genesis, enumerated by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilesar in the eighth century before Christ among his conquests, named by the prophet Jeremiah together with Sidon, around which gather in a remarkable way Assyrian, Egyptian, Arabian relations, the further unfolding of which, after bold travellers have opened up the place, we may await from Oriental research. In Teimâ itself Euting recently found Aramaic inscriptions of the oldest epoch (Nöldeke, Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1884, p. 813 f.) From the not far distant place Medâin-Sâlih (Hijr) proceed certain coins modelled after the Attic, which in part replace the owl of Pallas by that image of a god which the Egyptians designate as Besa the lord of Punt, i.e. of Arabia (Erman, Zeitschrift für Numismatik, ix. 296 f.) We have already mentioned the Nabataean inscriptions just found there ([p. 148], note 3). Not far from thence, near ’Ola (el-Ally) inscriptions have been found, which correspond in the writing and in the names of gods and kings to those of the South-Arabian Minaeans, and show that these had a considerable station here, sixty days’ journey from their home, but on the frankincense-route mentioned by Eratosthenes, from Minaea to Aelana; and alongside of these others of a cognate but not identical South-Arabian stock (D. H. Müller in the Berichte der Wiener Akademie of 17th December 1884). The Minaean inscriptions belong beyond doubt to the pre-Roman period. As on the annexation of the Nabataean kingdom by Trajan these districts were abandoned ([p. 152]), from that time another south-Arabian tribe may have ruled there.
[257] The accounts connected with the trade in frankincense in Theophrastus († 287 B.C.; Hist. plant. ix. 4) and more fully in Eratosthenes († 194 B.C.); in Strabo (xvi. 4, 2, p. 768) of the four great tribes of the Minaeans (Mamali Theophr.?) with the capital Carna; the Sabaeans (Saba Theophr.) with the capital Mariaba; the Cattabanes (Kitibaena Theophr.) with the capital Tamna; the Chatramotitae (Hadramyta Theophr.) with the capital Sabata, describe the very circle out of which the Homerite kingdom developed itself, and indicate its beginnings. The much sought for Minaei are now pointed out with certainty in Ma’in in the interior above Marib and Hadramaut, where hundreds of inscriptions have been found, and have yielded already no fewer than twenty-six kings’ names. Mariaba is even now named Marib. The region Chatramotitis or Chatramitis is Hadramaut.
[258] The remarkable remains of this structure, executed with the greatest precision and skill, are described by Arnaud (Journal Asiatique, 7 série, tome 3, for the year 1874, p. 3 f. with plans; comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, xii. 861). On the two sides of the embankment, which has now almost wholly disappeared, stand respectively two stone structures built of square blocks, of conical almost cylindrical form, between which a narrow opening is found for the water flowing out of the basin; at least on the one side a canal lined with pebbles leads it to this outlet. It was once closed with planks placed one above another, which could be individually removed, to carry the water away as might be needed. The one of those stone cylinders bears the following inscription (according to the translation, not indeed quite certain in all its details, of D. H. Müller, Wiener Sitzungsberichte, vol. xcvii, 1880, p. 965): “Jata’amar the glorious, son of Samah’alî the sublime, prince of Saba, caused the Balap (mountain) to be pierced (and erected) the sluice-structure named Rahab for easier irrigation.” We have no secure basis for fixing the chronological place of this and numerous other royal names of the Sabaean inscriptions. The Assyrian king Sargon says in the Khorsabad inscription, after he has narrated the vanquishing of the king of Gaza, Hanno, in the year 716 B.C.: “I received the tribute of Pharaoh the king of Egypt, of Shamsiya the queen of Arabia, and of Ithamara the Sabaean; gold, herbs of the eastern land, slaves, horses, and camels” (Müller, l. c. p. 988; Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, ii.5 p. 327).
[259] Sallet in the Berliner Zeitschrift für Numismatik, viii. 243; J. H. Mordtmann in the Wiener Numism. Zeitschrift, xii. 289.
[260] Pliny, H. N. xii. 14, 65, reckons the cost of a camel’s load of frankincense by the land-route from the Arabian coast to Gaza at 688 denarii (= £30). “Along the whole tract fodder and water and shelter and various custom-dues have to be paid for; then the priests demand certain shares and the scribes of the kings; moreover the guards and the halberdiers and the body-guards and servants have their exactions; to which our imperial dues fall to be added.” In the case of the water-transport these intervening expenses were not incurred.
[261] The chastising of the pirates is reported by Agatharchides in Diodorus, iii. 43, and Strabo, xvi. 4, 18, p. 777. But Ezion-Geber in Palestine, on the Elanitic gulf, ἣ νῦν Βερενίκη καλεῖται (Josephus, Arch. viii. 6, 4), was so called certainly not from an Egyptian princess (Droysen, Hellenismus, iii. 2, 349), but from the Jewess of Titus.
[262] This (προσοικειοῦσθαι τούτους—τοὺς Ἄραβας—ἢ καταστρέφεσθαι: Strabo, xvi. 4, 22, p. 780; εἰ μὴ ὁ Συλλαῖος αὐτὸν—τὸν Γάλλον—προὐδίδου, κἂν κατεστρέψατο τὴν Εὐδαίμονα πᾶσαν: ib. xvii. 1, 53, p. 819) was the proper aim of the expedition, although also the hope of spoil, just at that time very welcome for the treasury, is expressly mentioned.